I've had this one on the burner for a while; long before I released chapter two. I've been ignoring it and writing other things. For most of the second half, my brain has been trying to write a third installment of Just A Fantasy because it really resisted this chapter. Let me tell you, switching between sexy Nat & Clint and angsty Nat & Clint is giving me whiplash.

I lay alone in my quarters.

I've barely spoken to Clint since we got here. Previously, we would manage to get some time together everyday; we would even pull off the occasional tryst. If we could do it on the helicarrier, we could certainly achieved it here in this sedate bunker-cum-laboratory. Probably daily.

He's drawn up rigorous schedules where one of us is always on duty - nothing particularly unusual about this. However, a nine hour shift is standard. We plan overlap for reports and briefings at shift change. One of us always on-call, but less senior agents took the third shifts. Here, we have twelve hours on and twelve off. Really, on such a detail as this, it's ridiculous. Once protocol was established, we could practically both work 8-5.

The small office we share for writing up reports remains austere and so organized that we never need to check in with one another.

I find my mind drifting; I imagine pinning him to the wall of the office and forcing him to fucking look at me; to talk to me. I'd tase him if I had to. I make him listen to reason, I force him to acknowledge how counterproductive this self-reproach is, I convince him it's not his fault. Somehow this scene always ends with him clearing the work table with a sweep of his arm as he lifts me onto it, unzipping my catsuit with his teeth.

We don't even lock the door.

This scenario recedes; reality returns. I am watching Strike Team Delta dissolve.

And why? Because I am afraid to confront my best friend?

This ends now. I'm done waiting.

===========

I'm still forming this resolution when I enter the little office in the morning. Clint sits in the only chair in the room, eyes dark from fatigue. I lean against the small work table, arms folded across my chest, and cock an eyebrow at him.

"I'm going to confess to Fury. To the council."

"What?" I stammer, my cold irritation giving way to utter confusion. "Confess what?"

"I lied to them. Told them I didn't remember a thing after Loki came through the portal. That was a complete blank. It's not true. I remember every second with more detail than any other moment of my life. Knew where his base of operation was—hell, I found it for him. Knew the source of every fucking supply: gear, arms, equipment. A goddamn quinjet! I knew—know—it all."

He paces the short span of the room a few times and then settles on the opposite side of the table.

"I told them nothing!" He shoves the neat piles of documents and reports on to the floor. He leans on the table, knuckles white. "I could have volunteered information, but I waited for them to ask and then I lied," he finishes quietly.

"Did you have intel on the chitari or leviathans? Something that could have helped us fight them?" I ask.

"No, of course not."

"Most of the gear had to come directly from SHIELD. You know how?"

"There were several layers of intermediaries..." he trails off before abruptly exploding again. "It doesn't fucking matter! I had actionable intel and I denied knowing any of it."

I can't argue with him. He's right. He withheld information; very valuable information. If he admits this, he will be court-marshaled. If I had to answer truthfully, he should be. But I can't let that happen, to allow him to throw his career away. I try a different tact.

"If you do this, it's my ass, too! I've worked..."

He cuts me off as I struggle for words. "Did you lie to the council, to Fury, falsify any data to cover for me?"

"No..."

"Then what do you have to worry about, Tasha?" His voice has never sounded so weary.

"Well, no. Yes, yes, I did, I think. When you came to in the medical bay, it was pretty obvious that you had some, if not complete, recollection. I told them you were incoherent for a few minutes and, after the drugs kicked in, you started making sense but didn't know anything about Loki. It was true, in a way, you didn't have any intel we could act on. You didn't know where he was, did you?" He shakes his head. "And at first, you didn't make much sense."

He shrugs. "I'll tell them I lied to you, too."

"You told me you remembered everything. I did not tell them that."

I should be court-marshaled, too. I knew, without him telling me, what he was going to say and edited my account accordingly. I was complicit, although the far-reaching implications escaped me at the time. I would still have covered for him, but I would first have tried to convince him to relay the information.

"How much of it would be useful now?"

"There are people trafficking SHIELD assets." He laughs mirthlessly. "Seems like that would be pretty fucking useful to know. The rest," he shrugs, "probably not relevant, not by the time they debriefed us."

"They know your," I correct myself, "the assault team arrived in SHIELD gear and on a quinjet."

"They don't know where to start looking. I do."

"We need to..." I grope for a plan, but I'm still in such shock, the gears in my mind don't engage. I reason that if we could somehow convince Fury to let us look into this, Clint could redeem himself without destroying his life. We could argue Clint found them once, he could find them again. Getting out of this abysmal assignment would just be an added benefit; one Clint sorely needed.

"It's not just that, Nat, and we both know it." He lowers his head and stares down at his hands. "I can't... I just can't."

"Can't what?"

"Can't eat. Can't sleep. Can't touch you, can't look at you, can't even think about you without remembering. My stomach hurts just being in the same room with you. I just want it to stop," he murmurs, defeated. "I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror. I want to look at you and not feel sick with guilt. I set things up where we don't see each other much, thought that might help..."

"How's that working out?"

"I miss you. I miss me. Us. Whatever it was, whatever we were. I've completely fucked it up."

I start to deny it, but I can't; he has fucked it up, but probably not in the way that he thinks. I close my mouth and wait for him to continue.

He meets my eyes for a few moments before returning he gaze to the table. The set of his shoulders is both tense and defeated. "I never knew I could be so cruel."

"You weren't that cruel."

"I don't know," he exhale through his teeth. "The more distance I get, the more I think, what if all Loki did was to unleash my darkest self? What if he just let me be what I really am."

"You are the guy who looked into my eyes, and saw something worth saving. The idiot who brought me back to Fury like some kid with a stray dog. The warrior who stood with gods and monsters armed with a bunch of sticks. The friend who..."

He shrugs ambivalently. I can't decide if I want to hug him or to hit him.

This isn't how I saw this conversation going. I expected to yell at him; he's stubborn but I know how to deal with a determined and angry Clint. I have no idea how to handle lost and self-destructive Clint. I promised him when we first became partners that I wouldn't use my training to manipulate him. I have mostly kept that promise. But even if I wanted to, I'm completely adrift. I have no idea how to navigate any of this. Feelings of tenderness crash against despair and utter fucking frustration.

"You are right, you know, you are fucking 'this' all up. But not with what happened. It's with what's happening now - you are pushing me away and punishing yourself."

"You think I'm being a martyr?" He sinks into the room's only chair.

I move close to him and he rests his temple against my belly. I run my nails along his scalp and he exhales wearily. Relief at the first physical contact we've had in weeks pricks at the back of my eyes.

"I think you need me to hate you as much as you hate yourself. I would have done anything to get you back and don't want to lose you again."

I want to add 'I love you,' because its true; I never realized how true until this ordeal. All I want to do is comfort him, but I'm abruptly exhausted from pleading with him.

So I don't finish with this declaration, I finish with an ultimatum instead. "But you will lose me if you don't get it together. I need my partner back. Or not at all."

I turn on my heel and leave to office before he can respond or I equivocate.

God, I'm such a bitch sometimes.


I'm going to try to get chapter 4&5 up as soon as I can. One of those two will be a sexy chapter. Reviews will make the writing go faster.